1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to in-line roller skates and to braking systems and methods useful in conjunction with in-line roller skates. More particularly, the present invention relates to improvements for in-line roller skates having brake elements associated with one or more wheels with manually operated levers mounted in a handle actuating such brakes. While the present invention is especially useful for manually-actuated brake systems for skates having the wheels thereof arranged in a line and sometimes referred to as roller blade skates, its application is not necessarily limited to those types of skates.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of the side slip motion of an ice skater to reduce, or stop, forward movement is not available to the in-line roller skater. Thus, the vast majority of the contemporary in-line roller skates include a rubber block extending from the rear and somewhat downwardly from the skate. This brake is obviously operable by only one skate at a time, and is extremely awkward to use especially at high speed. Because of the awkward nature of such brakes, in-line skaters frequently will use a sideways drag on the front wheel of one of the skates to reduce speed. This is likewise unsatisfactory, and only slightly better than no brakes at all.
Therefore, the prior art has given some attention to improving the braking of in-line skates. For instance, the use of foot and/or hand grip actuated brakes on in-line roller skates is known in the prior art. Typically, a cable extends from the hand grip to the brake mechanism which has a brake shoe movable to engage the periphery, side walls or inner brake drums of one or more wheels. Examples are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,871,672 by Bardy, U.S. Pat. No. 3,904,215 by Bardy, U.S. Pat. No. 4,076,266 by Krausz, U.S. Pat. No. 4,300,781 by Riggs, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,943,075 by Gates.
The roller skate or skateboard brake systems disclosed in the prior art use hand grips with cables which, from the perspective of the user, are permanently attached to the skate and are not detachable except through disassembly of awkward mechanisms often requiring the use of tools. Some examples are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,300,781 by Riggs and U.S. Pat. No. 4,076,266 by Krausz. The brake cables of both devices are awkward to remove and even potentially hazardous, as they tend to extend substantially from the rear of the skate or board.
Hand grip actuators on the end of the brake cable for prior art devices are sometimes attached to the pocket or belt of the user via clips, or the like, such as are suggested in Mirick U.S. Pat. No. 1,801,205, Bardy U.S. Pat. No. 3,904,215 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,108,451 by Scheck. Such attachments tend to kink the cable or to respond to the cable movements by unintentionally coming loose when the skater moves through the various stooping and bending motions associated with normal use of the skates.
The skater is sometimes faced with a circumstance where normal walking is imperative with the skate not allowed to roll. The skater can remove the skate, or skates, of course, but this is undesirable where only short-term walking is demanded. Thus, it was also recognized in the past that maintaining one or more brakes associated with roller skates in an actuated condition permits the skater to negotiate in at least an approximation of normal walking, as for climbing or descending stairs, passing over rocky or rough terrain, etc. For example, Horowitz et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,312,514 employs a thumb screw to manually tighten brake pads into a locked condition for this purpose.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,871,672 and 3,904,215, both by Bardy, include somewhat complex mechanisms to allow sequential locking and unlocking of roller skate brakes either by ankle motion with respect to linked levers, or by hand actuated cables or cords. Both patents employ an array of magnets, springs and levers to produce the foregoing result in configurations entirely unsuited for the typical operating environment of skates. In fact, the brakes of these prior art systems will tend to lock and remain locked even when the user intends no such result.
The flailing of the cable interconnecting the hand grip and the skate brake structures is a safety hazard for the typical skater which remains unresolved in the prior art devices. Furthermore, the prior art devices did not allow the skater to skate with free hands by temporarily storing the hand grip on the person of the skater in a manner that accommodates the cable movement from normal skating motions, while concurrently remaining handy for rapid retrieval when needed.
The present invention is adaptable for use with practically any type of in-line brake configuration, but is particularly well suited for use in conjunction with in-line skate braking structure disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/753,318 filed Aug. 30, 1991 by Donald E. Cech, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 5,226,673 on Jul. 13, 1993; and in application Ser. No. 07/950,082 filed Sep. 23, 1992 by Donald E. Cech.